


I Think You'll Understand

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Community: cap_ironman, Early in Canon, Holding Hands, Identity Porn, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: Steve's first night in Avengers Mansion is a lonely one, until Iron Man stops by to welcome him to his new home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Steve/Tony fandom's tenth anniversary, this is part of a project of ficlets spread across the 616 timeline. I snagged 1964, the first year, the year the Avengers find Captain America.
> 
> The story title is from a popular song of 1964. In case you need another hint, it rhymes with the song title, which mentions an activity depicted in this story.
> 
> Thanks to Muccamukk for looking this over.

The room was better than a lot of places Steve had stayed -- especially recently -- but there was no sign, looking at it, that it was anything other than a perfectly normal bedroom. The bed was big enough for Steve, covered in a crisp blue and white comforter, and when he sat on the mattress he sank into it; it was a far cry from barracks living. There was a little nightstand with a reading lamp and a clock. A braided rug sat in the middle of the room, and on the far side of the room there was a little desk and a bookcase. The desk was empty, but the bookcase had a few knickknacks on it. Not photographs or paintings, like the team portrait that hung in the foyer, but little abstract sculptures. A ceramic bowl.

The overall effect was... cozy. It felt like it could be someone's home. Which was a silly thing to think, of course, because it _was_ someone's home, it was Mr. Stark's home, but it felt... inviting. As if the very atmosphere of the room wanted him to nestle into it. To make it his home, too. Steve supposed that made sense; it was the very offer that Mr. Stark had made to him, after the Avengers had invited him to join the team.

It felt familiar, even though it wasn't. It felt like a room he could belong in.

Outside the room, of course, everything was different. On the other side of the curtains was New York at night, Fifth Avenue at night -- and him, Steve Rogers from the slums, he was here in a ritzy mansion on the Upper East Side! Oh, New York was similar enough, he supposed; he'd recognized a lot of the buildings, still. But the cars had changed. The fashions had changed. The people had changed. The headlines had changed. The war was over.

It was 1964. The war had been over for almost twenty years. It was 1964, but three days ago it had been 1945. Three days ago he and Bucky had hurried off a RAF base for a last-minute mission, bidding a quick goodbye to the rest of the Invaders. Three days ago the Invaders had been his friends, and now it was twenty years later and he'd punched Namor in the face this morning. He didn't know what had happened to the rest of his team, but if Namor was any indication, it wasn't good.

Three days ago Bucky had been alive.

Struck again by sudden grief, Steve sat on the edge of the bed, curled his fingers into the mattress, and felt very, very alone in the future.

He shivered. Everything was so cold.

Then there was a knock on the door.

He got up and opened it, and standing in the hallway was... Iron Man.

Iron Man gleamed red and gold in the muted hallway lights. He was still wearing his armor, the way he had been earlier, the way he had been when Steve met him yesterday. Steve wondered if the fella ever took it off. It had to be uncomfortable. He couldn't tell if Iron Man was smiling, of course, but behind the mask his eyes were bright, a rather stunning shade of blue.

When Steve had woken up, in the future, everything had been blurry and out of focus, and he'd thought for a confused few seconds that Iron Man was some kind of robot, but then he'd gotten a good look at him, and he'd seen the eyes behind the mask -- wide in shock, and then overwhelmed, blinking back tears -- and Steve had abruptly realized there'd been a real person under there, a real man who'd been so happy to find him.

Iron Man's gaze was a little more tense now, darting around before settling on Steve's face. "Hi, Captain," he said. His voice was once again mechanical, distorted. Steve wondered if he could speak, if there was something wrong with his voice that led him to compensate with a machine, or if he just chose not to use his real voice. Probably the latter. He'd mentioned something about a secret identity, earlier.

"Iron Man," Steve said, surprised. "I wasn't expecting you tonight. Mr. Stark said-- he said you didn't live here."

Mr. Stark had shown him all the rooms on the floor before giving him one; there were far more rooms than there were Avengers. He had said none of them lived there full time, and Steve had to specifically ask about Iron Man, because he hadn't even mentioned the man's name. Mr. Stark had made the oddest face, his handsome features all twisted up, like he hadn't wanted to talk about it, and he said that Iron Man lived off-premises. There was clearly some kind of story there.

Iron Man's head tilted to the side, a broad motion that might have been confusion or agreement. Steve wondered which he meant. "I don't live here, no. But you seemed-- I mean, Mr. Stark said he thought you seemed a little quiet, earlier, when he was showing you around, and I thought I'd come by and check on you. Make sure you were doing all right." There was a hiss, sort of like laughter. "Make sure you hadn't gotten lost in the basement or fallen in the swimming pool, I guess."

"Nothing to worry about." Steve could feel himself try to smile, even through the numbness; something about Iron Man seemed to make him want to try to be his best self. "As you can see, I'm completely dry."

Iron Man made another hiss. Steve supposed that was laughter after all, and he could feel himself really smiling back, like-- like he hadn't just lost everyone he'd known, oh God, what would they all think if they saw him--

He could feel the smile fade.

He thought about what Iron Man had said. _Mr. Stark said_ , he'd told him. Steve frowned. "You and Mr. Stark, you... talked about me?"

It shouldn't have been strange. He was Captain America; he was used to being someone people talked about. But the way Iron Man had said it, it sounded like a different kind of conversation than the ones people usually had about him. It sounded like the two of them cared about who he was beyond the flag on his back, and he'd barely known them for a day. Had they found him wanting? Had they decided he shouldn't be an Avenger after all?

"Nothing bad," Iron Man said, hurriedly. "Don't worry. But, yeah, your name came up. Does that bother you?"

For lack of anything else to do, Steve stepped back and let Iron Man in while he thought of a response. He couldn't just say yes. He couldn't ask why they were talking about him.

"No," he said, and Iron Man's eyes narrowed behind the mask. "I mean, I-- I don't know--"

Iron Man put a hand on his shoulder, briefly; the metal was heavy. "It's okay," he said. "Everything's cool."

Steve blinked. "Cool?"

"Oh!" Iron Man sounded surprised. "Cool. Uh. Good, I mean. All right. Sorry. I guess you've missed a bit. There are some new words." Iron Man sat down in Steve's desk chair, which creaked alarmingly; Steve took the bed. "I mean, I was-- he was worried about you. Concerned. It's not every day someone wakes up from a twenty-year nap, you know? So I came to see if you were okay."

He was fine. Of course he was fine.

"I'm," Steve said, and then the word _fine_ didn't come out and somehow he was curled over himself, staring blankly at nothing, and he was shivering. He was cool, all right, he was cold, he was freezing. The water was closing over him and he was never going to come up again.

"Oh, hell," a voice said, from very far away, and then there were heavy footsteps. The bed next to him dipped, and there was a heavy hand on his back, moving over his spine in tiny circles. "Come on. Breathe. No, breathe slower. Stay with me, Captain. Captain?" There was a pause. "Steve?"

One breath. Two. Three. Steve became aware that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, with Iron Man's arm around him. After another few seconds, Iron Man dropped his arm.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, pained, ashamed. "I was-- there was a war. For me, it was three days ago." His voice was raspy. "I'll-- I can resign from the team."

Iron Man was silent for a beat too long. "Well, if we're kicking off everyone on the team who's ever been to war, then we'd start with me, and I don't think you'd want that, would you?"

Steve blinked and raised his head, staring at Iron Man. Not that he could tell anything by looking. But twenty years on -- Iron Man could be forty or forty-five under there, couldn't he? As old as Steve would have been if he hadn't taken a dip in the Atlantic. That wasn't so old. They could have fought together. Maybe they had.

"Did you serve--" he began, haltingly. "I mean, were you--?"

"Not in your war." Iron Man shook his head. The laugh now was a little fuzzy. "I'm not _that_ old. You've missed a couple of wars."

"Oh," Steve said, and that wave of unaccountable sadness lapped at him again. He'd thought-- he'd thought maybe this would have been it. That the war would have ended everything for good, the way they thought the Great War was going to. But it hadn't, it hadn't done anything at all.

"You missed Korea," Iron Man said. "Slept right through that one." And then his gauntleted hand came up and rubbed at his chest, like his heart pained him. "But we've got troops in Vietnam now." He seemed to be picking his words carefully. Like he was walking through a minefield. "That was where I met Mr. Stark. That was when he, uh. Figured out he needed a bodyguard."

Steve was getting the sense that this was something Iron Man hadn't told anyone before. A secret, just for him. "You were a soldier?"

Iron Man shook his head again. "Not exactly. I-- I can't--" The gaze behind the mask was pleading.

"It's classified," Steve said. "Okay. That's... cool?" He glanced up, to check that he'd used the word correctly. Iron Man's thumb curved up from his fist, a gesture Steve remembered fighter pilots using. He hoped that was a yes.

"I can't talk about it. I'm sorry." Iron Man's filtered voice was quiet, and even with the mechanical masking, Steve could read the feeling beneath it. "But I can tell you I'm sure as hell not the same man as I was before I went there. It took me a while to get right, afterwards. So I'm saying you don't have to be okay. And you've got the Avengers, if you want us. You've got Mr. Stark." He said this like he could casually offer up someone else's friendship to Steve. There was a pause. "You've got me. And I know none of us are... the people you had before, but. We can try. I can try."

Steve breathed in and out, a slow, shaking breath.

Iron Man reached over... and took his hand.

Steve couldn't feel it, of course, only the metal planes of his gauntlet, but something sprang to life in his chest, a warm ember in the midst of the ice.

"You'll let me stay?" Steve asked. His voice was wobbly.

"Of course," Iron Man said. He paused. "I mean, technically, this is Mr. Stark's place, but I'm positive that he's happy to have you."

Steve nodded. "Okay. He seems like a swell guy. I mean," he said, feeling a little strange about it, "superheroes, I know. I've met superheroes. No offense. But I've never met a fella like him. Millionaires, a few, sure, but they weren't... geniuses." It was the first thing that had struck him about the man, his intelligence. Well, that and his amazing good looks, but Steve suspected that even in 1964 he shouldn't just say that. "He's something special, huh? Like his own kind of superhero."

Iron Man shifted a little, like the comparison had made _him_ uncomfortable. "I, uh. Yeah. He's not half-bad, the boss. I guess."

"Not a bad job then," Steve wondered, "being his bodyguard?"

There was another crackly laugh. "Definitely not the worst thing I've ever done with my life."

"How about being an Avenger?"

He didn't really know where the question had come from, but suddenly it seemed very important to know this. He needed to know what he was getting himself into.

"Oh, it's been pretty good." And then Iron Man's hand tightened over his. "And as of three days ago... I think it might just be the best thing."

Steve realized he was smiling. He thought maybe the man under the mask was smiling too. If only the mouth-slit of the mask had been just a little bit bigger, he'd have been able to tell.

They weren't the Invaders. But they didn't have to be the same to be good. And this was where he was now. 1964. The future. A new world, with a new team. New friends. Iron Man had already proven in the field that he was a heck of a teammate, and it seemed now that he could be just as good a friend. Steve took a breath and the weight on his chest lifted. He wasn't alone. Not now. Maybe not ever.

"Yeah?" Steve asked. "The best thing, huh?"

"The best thing," Iron Man repeated. "I've just... got a really good feeling about this."

Steve was still smiling. "Yeah," he said. "I do, too."

He was still holding Iron Man's hand, and neither of them let go.


End file.
